Throwback Thursday: Mt. Superior

The South Face of Mt. Superior

As the air cools, the leaves change, and the sun hangs lower in the sky, my thoughts once again turn to skiing…wait, who am I kidding? I’ve spent all summer thinking about skiing. Mt. Hood has been looking frosty the past few days and I think an early season tour is imminent. To hold me over until the season starts for real, I’ll be posting throw-back reports for trips I did before I started this blog. I know this blog is supposed to be about Oregon, but I did spend a lot of time in Utah, so some of these trip reports will be about Utah descents.

The South Face of Mt. Superior is also one of the classic descents in the Wasatch. The mountain dominates the views from Alta and Snowbird: a triangular peak that looks like it would be more at home in the Chugach than the Wasatch. Its ridges are knife’s edge sharp, and it’s descent is steep, complex, and avalanche-prone. It is the roadside attraction to end all roadside attractions. After a big snow, avalanches have been know to rip off Mt. Superior and carry across Highway 210.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been as scared as I was on the ascent of Mt. Superior. Part of it was the exposure, and the fact that portions of the ridge were so narrow that the only way to walk across it was stepping heal to toe while looking at nothing but air for 300 feet on either side of you. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The main reason I was scared was an event that happened the day before was playing in my mind. While living in Alta, my buddy Al become a close friend, and a reliable ski buddy. We made the standard trips up places like Cardiff Bowl, and we did an exploratory mission over the Obelisk to check out the Hypodermic Needle. I always feel good skiing with Al, and he’s someone who’s judgment I always trust. The day before our attempt on Superior, Al, Brendan, Nick, and I made an attempt on the Y Couloir, farther down the Canyon. We started well before dawn, and in the confused cottonwoods that guard the entrance to the Y, we got lost. We ended up beneath an apron that looked like the Y (I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t). We started booting up with skis on our packs, excited to be entering what we thought was another classic run in LCC.

It was around 300 feet up when it happened. Al, who was leading the way slipped while negotiating a short section of water ice. In an instant, Al’s tall frame was falling backward, tumbling down the mountain. There were yells from the crew as Al gained speed. It was just beginning to get light. Al slid down the apron for nearly 200 feet before he was finally caught by some twiggy cotton woods that had somehow taken root in the perpetual avalanche path. We rushed down to him. My heart was racing and I was sweating despite the pre-dawn cold. Al was OK, but we were all a little shaken. We decided to call it a day (It was barely 6:00am) and headed back to the car.

Photo by Allan Young

Photo by Allan Young

The next day, Al, Nick, and I made our attempt on Superior. We started at 6:30am where most tours in Alta start: next to Our Lady of the Snows. The Route ascends up to Cardiff Pass, around Cardiff peak, over Little Superior, and then finally to the peak of Superior itself. In total, the ascent is a little over 3,000 feet.

With headlamps illuminating the familiar way, we quickly gained the ridge and began our ascent of Little Superior. The snow was sun crusted and slick following an afternoon of sun and warm temperatures. As we skinned, the terrain got steeper and the snow slicker. Images of Al’s fall began playing in my mind. Except this time, there was no stand of cottonwoods to catch us. A slide from the ridge of Mt. Superior would be a slide for life; if you didn’t end up sailing off a cliff, who knows how far you would end up sliding.

I don’t entirely remember the last 500 feet of the climb to the summit. We finally reached the top, set down our packs on the small peak and waited for the sun crust to soften.

I trembled as I clipped into my skis, careful not to send one
off the edge. We descended the ridge on the skiers right until we found a chute that looked good. I skied first. By my second turn, my butterflies were gone. My muscle memory took over and I continued my jump-turns down the ever softening corn snow. For the first time all morning, I felt like I knew what I was doing. After descending the chute, I found a safe spot on the hanging snowfield and waited as Al and Nick descended. The group’s relief was palpable as we joined together above the ramp that cuts skier’s right to left across the face. A few more turns and we were in the open, arching GS turns down the middle and lower aprons. All of a sudden it was over. We were at the road, with mighty Mt. Superior looming behind us.

By the time we reached the road, the sun was high and the air was warm. We stripped down to t-shirts and began the trudge up the road back to Alta. I rounded out the day with a couple cans of 3.2 beer on the sunny A-Lodge deck.

The summit, with Monte Cristo in the background (Photo by Allan Young)

South Face of Mt. Superior (Photo by Allan Young)